The Benefits of the Death Penalty

Crime is everywhere. Wherever we look, we find criminals and crime. Criminals have
become a part of our daily lives. Does this mean we let them be the darkness of our
society? No, definitely not. Eliminating crime and criminals is our duty, and we
cannot ignore it. Getting the rightly accused to a just punishment is very important.
Some criminals commit a crime because they have no other option to survive, but
some do it for fun. I do not advocate death penalty for everybody. A person, who
stole bread from a grocery store, definitely does not deserve death penalty.
However, a serial killer, who kills people for fun or for his personal gain, definitely
deserves death penalty. Death penalty should continue in order to eliminate the
garbage of our society. Not everybody deserves to die, but some people definitely
do. I support death penalty because of several reasons. Firstly, I believe that death
penalty serves as a deterrent and helps in reducing crime. Secondly, it is true that
death penalty is irreversible, but it is hard to kill a wrongly convicted person due to
the several chances given to the convicted to prove his innocence. Thirdly, death
penalty assures safety of the society by eliminating these criminals. Finally, I believe
in "lex tallionis" - a life for a life. \
Deterrence means to punish somebody as an example and to create fear in other
people for the punishment. Death penalty is one of those extreme punishments that
would create fear in the mind of any sane person. Ernest van den Haag, in his
article "On Deterrence and the Death Penalty" mentions, "One abstains from
dangerous acts because of vague, inchoate, habitual and, above all, preconscious
fears" (193). Everybody fears death, even animals. Most criminals would think twice
if they knew their own lives were at stake. Although there is no statistical evidence
that death penalty deters crime, but we have to agree that most of us fear death.
Suppose there is no death penalty in a state and life imprisonment without parole is
the maximum punishment. What is stopping a prisoner who is facing a life
imprisonment without parole to commit another murder in the prison? According to
Paul Van Slambrouck, " Assaults in prisons all over US, both against fellow inmates
and against staff, have more than doubled in the past decade, according to
statistics gathered by the Criminal Justice Institute in Middletown, Connecticut"
(Christian Science Monitor, Internet). There is no stopping these inmates from
committing further crimes within the prison, if they are already facing the maximum
punishment. Anti-death penalty advocates argue that imprisonment itself could
deter criminals. They believe that we do not need to go to the extreme measure of
killing the criminals to deter crime. Hugo Adam Bedau in his article, "Capital
Punishment and Social Defense" mentions, "Crimes can be deterred only by making
would-be criminals frightened of being arrested, convicted, and punished for
crimes& " (301). Unfortunately, the ever-increasing population in the prisons proves
otherwise. Somehow, just imprisonment is not enough for some people to stop them
from committing a crime. The number of criminals is increasing every year. In 1990,
there were 42,733 prisoners in Alaska, whereas in 1999 it increased to 68,599
(Death Penalty USA Pages, Internet). Some criminals may think that they would
never be caught, and just keep committing crimes. The perfect example for this
would be serial killers. For such people, death penalty should be there, so that

others, who even think about committing such crimes, learn a lesson that every
criminal is eventually caught.

Anti-death penalty advocates believe that death penalty is irreversible and may
become a cause of irreversible mistakes. Once a person has been sentenced to
death and thus death penalty practiced, there is nothing that can be done to undo
the punishment if the accused turns out to be innocent. I agree that death penalty is
irreversible, but the chance of making a mistake in death penalty is extremely low.
Death penalty is considered an extreme punishment and the judicial system takes a
lot of care in finalizing the decision. There are several safeguards guaranteeing
protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty. For example, "Capital
punishment may be imposed only when guilt is determined by clear and convincing
evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts", "Anyone
sentenced to death shall receive the right to appeal to a court of higher
jurisdiction", etc. (Capital Punishment: Life or Death, Internet). There are several
other privileges provided to the convicted that assure that death penalty is given to
the rightly accused person. According to Haag, "Trials are more likely to be fair when
life is at stake - the death penalty is probably less often unjustly inflicted than
others" (192). Statistics reveal that there is far less number of death sentences than
life imprisonment sentences without parole given out every year. According to
Federal Justice Statistics, in 1998, there were approximately 5000 criminals
sentenced to life imprisonment as opposed to 74 criminals sentenced to death
(Internet). This shows that judicial system itself is very careful with death sentences.
Even if we assume that there are chances that an innocent person is executed, it is
the problem with the trial, not the punishment. "It is not the penalty - whether death
or prison - which is unjust when inflicted on the innocent, but its imposition on the
innocent", writes Haag (192). When an innocent person is sentenced to death, it is
not the fault of the punishment itself, but the trial that led to this punishment. There
have been cases in which a person has been sentenced to life imprisonment without
parole, and then after several years, it was revealed that the person was innocent.
No court or compensation in this world can return the horrifying years spent in the
prison by that innocent person. If we stop giving life imprisonment sentences to
criminals on this ground, then probably most of the criminals would be walking
around free on the streets within ten to fifteen years. The fear and trust that the
society has in the judicial system would be lost. The judicial system has minimized
the chances of mistakes. It is almost impossible to sentence a wrongly accused
person. Then, why cause death of several innocent victims just on the bleak
assumption that some day we might make a mistake?

Incapacitating a person is "depriving s/he of the physical or intellectual power of

natural il/legal qualifications" (Webster, 574). Death penalty is not advocated for all
criminals. Those criminals, who commit murders during self-defense or during times
of passion, do not deserve death penalty. However, those people who just do not
seem to learn the lesson the first time, or those who kill for fun, definitely deserve

death penalty. Defendants (murderers) are allowed to shield themselves from justice
by pleading insanity. Insanity means a failure to respond to the usual sort of
incentives in the usual ways. If insane people are completely unresponsive to
incentives, then their profits serve no social purpose, thus leading to another
beneficial factor of the death penalty. People who have no social purpose do not
benefit society, culture of mankind, or the basic rules of humanity. For example: This
drug related brain-damaged killer barely knew his own identity when he murdered a
mother and her daughter in front of a 3 year old boy. When he was finished raping
the females and performed their deaths, he move on to sexually molest the boy in
which he then left him to die. The retarded man then pled insanity, got to stay in jail
for 22 years, eating three square meals a day, sleeping on a mattress with a blanket
in air conditioned comfort and having a roof over his head (Shapiro, 61). Where do
we draw the line between mentally incapable and criminally insane? When are they
going to learn to resume the responsibility for their actions? I am not saying that all
mentally disabled people should be subject to death penalty because they are no
good to the society. However, some people pose a great fatal danger to the society
in such a cruel way as seen in the above example. In such cases, death penalty
becomes crucial for the benefit of the society. I believe every criminal, no matter
how cruel he is, should be given at least one chance to change himself/herself.
Thus, I do not advocate death penalty for people who have performed only one
murder. However, there have been cases in which people have committed several
murders (e.g., serial killers), or have committed crime even after imprisonment. For
such people, I advocate death penalty. There needs to be a limit to which society
should put up to. If somebody does not understand that going around killing people
is wrong, then I believe, that letting such people live is not only a great threat to the
society, but also a great burden. Advocate of anti-death penalty, Adam Bedau,
wrote, "Prevention by means of incapacitation occurs only if the executed criminal
would have committed other crimes if he or she had not been executed and had
been punished only in some less incapacitative way (e.g., by imprisonment)"
(Capital Punishment and Social Defense, 301). If people commit a crime while facing
an imprisonment sentence, then their sentence should be changed to death
sentence, since it is evident that they are just habitual to committing crimes and are
a constant threat to the society, including the other inmates.

Some people might think that death penalty is inhuman and barbarous, but ask
those people who have lost their beloved or whose lives have been tied to a hospital
bed because of some barbarous person. I am sure they would be very unhappy to
see the person who ruined their lives just getting a few years of imprisonment or
mere rehabilitation. Consider the example of the rapist and killer given above. Now,
suppose the woman raped was your wife, sister, or daughter. How would you feel
knowing that the person who ruined your family is calmly enjoying the benefits of
an asylum and an air-conditioned room? Anti-death penalty supporters believe that
death penalty is barbarous. Well! So is murder. Death penalty is not revenge.
Rather, it is a matter of putting an end to a life that has no value for other human
lives. Sentencing a murderer to death is in fact a favor to the society. Despite the

moral argument concerning the inhumane treatment of the criminal, we return to

the "nature" of the crime committed. Can society place an unequal weight on the
tragically lost lives of murder victims and the criminal? This is not an exam question
in a college philosophy course but a moral conundrum at the core of perhaps the
most intriguing issue facing the U. S. Supreme Court today. Punishment is meted
out because of the nature of the crime, devoid of any reference to the social identity
of the victim. In "The Death Penalty in America", Adam Bedau wrote, "even in the
tragedy of human death there are degrees, and that it is much more tragic for the
innocent to lose his life than for the State to take the life of a criminal convicted of a
capital offense" (308). I believe that if one cannot value the life of another human
being, then one's own life has no value.

Death penalty is good and serves a definite purpose of reducing crime as well as
bringing justice to the criminals and innocent. In order to serve its purpose, it must
be adjusted and made more effective and efficient. The justice system has changed
dramatically in the past thirty years in order to make sure that the rightly accused is
brought to justice. I believe that death penalty should not be abolished, as it
ensures the safety of the society, brings justice to those who have suffered and
most importantly helps in reducing crime and criminals in our society. Death penalty
is important to keep the brightness of justice and public safety shining brightly on
our society.